Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 map portrays the New World as a separate continent, which until then was unknown to the Europeans. It was the first map, printed or manuscript, to depict clearly a separate Western Hemisphere, with the Pacific as a separate ocean. The map represented a huge leap forward in knowledge, recognizing the newly found American landmass and forever changing the European understanding of a world divided into only three parts—Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Long thought lost, the 1507 Waldseemüller world map was discovered more than a century ago in a castle in southern Germany. The map was owned by the family of Prince Johannes Waldburg-Wolfegg for more than 350 years and had rarely been made available for examination. The map survived in mint condition because its twelve individual sheets were placed in a portfolio by its original owner, Johann Schöner (1477–1547), a Nuremberg astronomer and geographer.
The original portfolio contained other cartographic treasures including the 1516 wall map by Martin Waldseemüller, known as the “Carta Marina,” and terrestrial and celestial globe gores created by Schöner, which are part of the Library’s Jay I. Kislak Collection. The Carta Marina is thought by some to be the first printed nautical map of the entire world and differs markedly from the 1507 World Map. The name “America” is omitted from the 1516 map, the size of the New World is also greatly reduced, and the Pacific Ocean disappears. Among Schöner’s globe gores included in the portfolio is the first-known set of printed celestial gores that he designed and printed in 1517. These annotated gores represent the state of astronomical knowledge in Schöner’s time and are an improvement over many of the star charts of the period.
Martin Waldseemüller
Universalis cosmographia secunda Ptholemei traditionem et Americi Vespucci aliorum que lustrations
[Strasbourg?]: 1507
Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress (142)
The 1507 Universalis cosmographiae by Martin Waldseemüller is the first map to show the continents of the New World separated from Asia, revealing the Pacific Ocean. Often called the “Birth Certificate of America,” it is also the first map on which the name “America” appears. The only surviving copy, displayed here, is a masterpiece of woodblock printing and is modeled after the earlier world maps of second century geographer Claudius Ptolemy.
Compiled by Johann Schöner
Schöner Sammelband
Nuremberg: ca. 1516
Jay I. Kislak Collection
Rare Book and Special Collections Division (143)
The Schöner Sammelband is arguably one of the most important compilations of cartographic materials to survive from the early Renaissance. The Sammelband, or compilation, was discovered in 1901 by the Jesuit historian, Father Josef Fischer, in the library of the Castle of Wolfegg, in Württemberg, Germany. The volume had been assembled sometime after 1516 and contained the only surviving copies of Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 Universalis cosmographiae, his 1516 Carta Marina Navigatoria (page shown)and globe patterns by the mathematician, alchemist and globe-maker Johann Schöner (1477–1547).
Martin Waldseemüller.
Carta Marina Navigatoria Portugallen Navigationes Atque Tocius Cogniti Orsis Terre Marisque.
[Strasbourg?]: 1516. Facsimile.
Ownership of the original map is shared by the Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress and the Kislak Foundation. (144)
Printed on twelve sheets, the Carta Marina, like the Martin Waldsemüller’s 1507 world map, was part of the volume of cartographic materials, known as the Sammelband, assembled by mathematician, alchemist, and globe-maker Johann Schörner. Sheet number six appears slightly different in color from the other eleven sheets of the map because it is printed on a different type of paper and most probably was a proof sheet. This sheet of the map was not originally bound into the Sammelband like the others and seems to have been added at a later date.